Thanks for watching!
find a seat and grab a hymnal turn if you would our first hymn tonight is number
100 day by day hymn number 100 one zero zero day by day we'll sing their
starting on the first day by day
pray if you bow your heads with me. Heavenly Father, we just thank you again
for an opportunity to gather tonight. We just thank you for the salvations that
we had this afternoon for leading us to a lot of low-hanging fruit, Lord, that just
believed on
your son's name and we're saved and I just pray that you would be with them to help them find a
good church and get into a place where they can serve you best with their life. Also just want
to pray that you would be with us all and keep us safe as we travel after service this evening,
that you would just protect us in this weather and uncertainty. Also pray that you just continue
to be with us for the service this evening. These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, for our next hymn, turn if you would to 110.
All the way my savior leads me
Him number one ten
one one zero
All the way my savior leads me
We'll sing there on the first
has been my guide, and we peace in minus comfort,
hear my faith in Him to dwell.
For I know what air befall me, Jesus, to evolve.
I dread. Gives me grace for every trial. Means we live the living bread. Though my
weary steps may falter and my soul
to rounds of day.
This my song through endless ages.
Jesus, guide me all the way.
This my song through endless ages.
Jesus, guide me all the way.
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Anchor Baptist Church.
This time we'll go through our announcements.
passage of the week Galatians chapter 1 verse 1 and I did mention to everyone
that came to the ordination from out of state that they're in on the Hebrew 6
challenge as well so if anyone is listening online and they did that
email me and I'll make sure to get you your prize. Our contact information is on
the front there on the inside of our bulletin is our service time Sunday
7 we've been going through 1st Samuel and this Wednesday we took a little break doing a men's preaching night
But we're gonna make up for that service this evening. We'll be going through 1st Samuel 20
Soul winning times are listed there all those meet here at the church building and we did have three salvation today
Praise the Lord for that even in the snow people are still willing to hear the gospel and get saved
So praise God for that nursing home ministry is listed there if you've taken that year to date statistics there as well as
our email to report salvations.
Our expecting ladies list is there.
Please be in prayer for Mrs. Reed.
Also, we have some upcoming events.
February 2nd, we're going to have
another men's preaching night
and potluck right after that.
So please do bring something to share for that.
February 14th, that's a Friday.
We're going to have a Sweethearts Banquet for married couples only at 7 o'clock p.m.
April 19th is going to be our Easter soul winning marathon in Oklahoma City.
We'll meet here at the church building at nine and have some refreshments.
Go out soul winning at 10.
Have lunch and another round of soul winning in the afternoon.
There'll be some more details on that as we get closer.
There's a conference at Sher Foundation Baptist Church May 16th through the 18th on the King James Bible
I know of course pastor Thompson the hosting pastor will be preaching pastor Stephen Anderson pastor Jonathan Shelley
And I think there's some more as well, but definitely some great speakers for that conference if you'd like to go to that
May 31st is the Durant Oklahoma Soling Marathon when we're going to be teaming up with Steadfast Baptist Church.
June 28th is a fellowship day at the Tinker Air Show at the Tinker Air Force Base.
October 6th through the 11th is the Bahamas mission trip and I feel like half of our church has already signed up for this
So I'm really excited, you know, if everyone would just sign up
I'll take it off the bulletin. We could just forget about it until we get there
But sign up. It's gonna be awesome really excited for that and excited anchor Baptist churches representing in that missions trip as well
On the back is our prayer list if you have any updates or requests
Please email the church be happy to add that for you. That's gonna be it this evening. We'll go ahead and go to our third song
All right, our third hymn this evening, if you would turn to 120, Jesus save your pilot
We'll sing their starting on the first
As a mother, stills her child, Thou canst touch the ocean while
Boisterous waves obey thy will, When thou saith, stood and be still
Wonders sovereign of the sea, Jesus saith
Twist me and the peace will rest
Then while he be on thy breast
May I hear thee say to me
Fear not, I will buy the day
Amen.
As the offering plates are being passed,
turn, if you would, to 1 Samuel chapter 20.
1 Samuel chapter 20.
Good evening first Samuel chapter number 20 the Bible reads and David fled from Neoth in Ramah and came and said before
Jonathan what have I done?
What is my iniquity and what is my sin before thy father that he seeketh my life and he said unto him
God forbid thou shalt not die behold my father will do nothing either great or small
But that he will show it me and why should my father hide this thing from me?
It is not so and David swear moreover and said
Thy father certainly knoweth that I have found grace in thine eyes and he saith
Let not Jonathan know this lest he be grieved
But truly as the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth there is but a step between me and death
Then said Jonathan on a David whatsoever thy soul desireth I will even do it for thee and
David said unto Jonathan behold
Tomorrow is the new moon that I should not fail to sit with the king at meet
But let me go that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even if I father at all miss me then say
David earnestly asked leave of me that he might run to Bethlehem his city for
there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the family
If ye say thus, it is well, thy servant shall have peace, but if he be very wroth, then be sure that evil is determined by him.
Therefore thou shalt deal kindly with thy servant, for thou hast brought thy servant into a covenant of the Lord with thee,
notwithstanding, if there be in me iniquity, slay me thyself, for why shouldest thou bring me to thy father?
Far be it from thee, for if I knew certainly that evil were determined by my father to
come upon thee, then why would not I tell it thee?
Then said David to Jonathan, who shall tell me?
Or what if thy father...
answer the roughly and Jonathan said unto David come and let us go out into the
field and they went out both of them into the field and Jonathan said unto
David oh Lord my God oh Lord God of Israel when I have sounded my father
about tomorrow anytime or the third day and behold if there be good toward David
And I then see and I then send not unto thee and show it thee the Lord do so and
Much more to Jonathan, but if it please my father to do the evil
Then I will show it thee and send thee away that thou mayest go in peace and the Lord be with
And the Lord be with thee as he hath been with my father and thou shalt not only
While yet I live show me the kindness of the Lord that I die not
But also thou shalt not cut off that kindness from my house forever. No
Not when the Lord hath cut off the enemies of David, every one from the face of the earth.
So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David saying,
let the Lord even require it at the hand of David's enemies.
And Jonathan caused David to swear again because he loved him,
for he loved him as he loved his own soul.
Then Jonathan said to David, tomorrow is the new moon and now shall be missed
because I see will be empty.
And when thou hast stayed three days, then shalt thou go down quickly and come to the place where thou didst hide thyself when the business was in hand, and shalt remain by the stone easel, and I will shoot the arrows on the side that are of
As though I shot at a mark and behold I will send a lad saying go find out the arrows if I
Expressly say unto the unto the lad behold the arrows are on this side of thee
Take them then if thou then then come thou for there is peace to thee and no hurt as the Lord liveth
If I say thus unto the young man behold the arrows are beyond thee go that way
for the Lord hath sent thee away, as touching this matter, which thou and I have spoken of, behold,
the Lord be between thee and me forever. So David hid himself in the field, and when the new moon
was come, the king sat him down to eat meat, and the king sat upon his seat, as at other times,
Even upon a seat by the wall and Jonathan arose and Abner sat by Paul sat by Saul's side and
David's place was empty. Nevertheless, Saul spake not anything that day for he thought something hath befallen him
He is not clean. Surely he is not clean
it came to pass on the morrow which was the second day of the month that David's
place was empty and Saul said unto Jonathan his son wherefore cometh not
the son of Jesse to meet neither yesterday nor today and Jonathan answered
Saul David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem and he said let me go
I pray thee for our father for our family hath a sacrifice in the city and my
He hath commanded me to to be there and now if I have found favor in thine eyes
Let me let me get away. I pray thee and see my brethren therefore he cometh not unto the king's table
Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan and he said unto him thou son of the perverse rebellious woman
Do not I know that thou has chosen the son of Jesse?
to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness, for as long as the Son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom, wherefore, now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die."
whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to slay David, so Jonathan arose
from the table in fierce anger and did eat no meat the second day of the month, for he was
grieved for David because his father had done him shame, and it came to pass in the morning that
Jonathan went out into the field at the time appointed with David and a little lad with him.
and he sent into his lad run find out now the arrows which I shoot and as the
lad ran he shot an arrow beyond him and when the lad was come to the place of
the arrow which Jonathan had shot Jonathan cried after the lad and said
is not the arrow beyond thee and Jonathan cried after the lad make
speed haste stay not and Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows and came to his
But the lad knew not anything.
Only Jonathan and David knew the matter.
And Jonathan gave his artillery unto the lad
and said unto him, go, carry them to the city.
And as soon as the lad was gone, David
arose out of a place toward the south
and fell on his face toward the ground
and bowed himself three times.
And they kissed one another and wept one with another
until David exceeded.
And Jonathan said to David, go in peace.
for as much as we have sworn both of us
in the name of the Lord, saying the Lord be between me
and thee and between my seed and thy seed forever.
And he arose and departed and Jonathan went into the city.
That's by our heads for a word of prayer, Father in Heaven.
We thank you for this day.
And we thank you for a warm church building
that we can gather in.
And we thank you for the souls that were saved out here.
And we just ask you please feel past your alls
from the Holy Spirit.
And that can help us to.
to learn from the Word and help us to be the best Christians
that we can be and be saved for it.
Amen.
And what have I done? What is my
Iniquity and what is my sin before thy father that he seek it my life and number one this evening
I want to highlight David's problem
David's problem and he had a huge massive problem in his life at this time
Was that obviously he was being hunted to be killed by King Saul and he kind of lamenting here saying like
What is the cause for this? What's the reason why he hates me?
but the truth is that there is no good reason and you know us as Christians can relate to us
because Jesus and other places in the New Testament told us to expect to be hated for no reason.
Go to 1st Corinthians chapter number 10, 1st Corinthians chapter number 10 and what we have
to realize is that you know we talked about this a lot recently that the human experience is pretty
No matter what time period you're living in, no matter where you find yourself, you're
going to find yourself going through the same situations as other people have in the past.
And when we read stories in the Old Testament, a lot of these stories are written, the Bible
says, for our admonition.
And we're supposed to look at these stories and make application to our lives today.
Look at 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13, the Bible says, there hath no temptation taken you,
But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but
will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.
And the truth is that us today, Christians all over this world are experiencing the same
exact type of problems that other generations have in the past.
And you had King David being hated for no reason, being hunted down, trying to be killed,
every single Christian in this world will at some point experience being hated, rejected, despised,
looked down upon for no reason, for no reason whatsoever, but you know what, there's no temptation
taking us but such as is common to man. This is something we should expect in life as Christians
and realize that though at times it can feel lonely, and I'm sure David, I mean he's upset here,
he's kind of lamenting about the troubles that he's going through, but the truth is that David
that all Christians go through.
Now, his might be to an elevated level, but the idea of just being hated for no reason
is a normal thing.
Go to Luke chapter number six, Luke chapter number six.
Let's look at some teachings from the Lord Jesus Christ on this issue.
Jesus said, blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you
from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the Son
of Man's sake.
Now, if you've been saved for a long time, you've been serving God for a long time, this
should just be an obvious no-brainer to you.
You're like, yeah, we've seen this a thousand times, we know about the protests, we've been
But oftentimes when someone first gets saved, this could be a major shock to their system.
Especially if they not only get saved, but actually decide to sell out for God and really
get serious about serving Him, you know, maybe they start going to church three times a week.
Maybe they start going knocking on random strangers' doors in the snowstorm, and your
family might think that you're crazy, and your family might even start to despise you
or speak evil of you for doing something that's good, for doing something that's right.
And notice what Jesus said.
Men shall hate you if they separate. He said when they hate you why?
Because every single Christian that lives a godly life that is seeking to please God
It doesn't matter where you live
It doesn't matter what time period you're living in you will be hated by people for no reason and there are people all
Over this world that hate us simply because we're Christians
Simply because we believe the Bible.
I mean, there's whole, you know, extremist sects of Islam that they literally want to kill Christians.
They literally want to kill people that are the infidels, that are the non-believers.
You know, Jesus said that the world would hate us, and specifically it says, separate you from their company.
You know, sometimes when you get saved and you start doing what's right, sometimes family
members want to separate from you.
They're upset that you don't want to go drink with them anymore.
They're upset that you don't want to go to a certain party or be around a certain atmosphere
and they might look down at you and separate you from their company.
That's something that Jesus told us to expect.
Also he said that they shall reproach you.
What does that mean?
It means that they're going to find fault with you.
and reproaching you. Also it says, and cast out your name as evil. What's that talking
about? Basically they're going to be trashing your reputation.
calling you names, trashing your reputation.
What are some of the names they like to throw out there?
Cult followers.
Or they'll make fun of you like,
oh, you know, you have a Jesus crutch.
You know, you need Jesus because you're so mentally weak.
It's like, I need Jesus.
I don't care, you know, what you want to make fun of or whatever.
But yes, I do need the word Jesus Christ.
But, you know, people want to trash your reputation,
calling you names, separate from you,
you know, hate you without a cause.
But realize that...
these temptations that we go through is not something that's just unique to us.
Because this is what the devil wants you to think.
Oh, you're going through all this because you are a weird church,
or you are a part of a weird group.
But it's like, no, actually, this is what Jesus warned would happen
if you're living a Godly life.
And this is something that you're just going to expect.
I'm going to read for you 1 Corinthians 4-13. Paul says,
We are made as the filth of the world, and are the off-scouring of all things unto this day.
Oftentimes, from the world's perspective, Christians are just the filth of the earth.
And people especially, they just hate fundamentalists.
They hate fundamental Baptists, they cast out our name as evil, and a lot of times Christians' reputation in the world is that of being hated and despised.
Now, what are some of the things that the world hates us for? Just this week I overheard someone at work trashing this Christian family for homeschooling their children.
I mean, isn't that something that the world looks at us and they'll trash our reputation?
They'll say, oh, you're going to raise kids that are stupid.
You're going to raise kids that aren't socialized, that don't know how to get along with people.
You know, you need to put them in the public education system.
And they'll think that you're insane, that you're crazy, that you're even neglecting your child
by you making the decision to home school.
We shouldn't just...
Receive the criticism of this world. Okay. I'll just change that and to do whatever the world thinks is right
Just because you're being hated or criticized because newsflash the public school system is a joke
Newsflash being in the public school system your kids are gonna be around a bunch of pro LGBT propaganda
They're gonna be around drugs and alcohol and temptations of fornication and all sorts of wickedness
That a young child is not really equipped to deal with on their own
I mean, even adults, we're not even supposed to be playing around with that stuff either.
And I don't even think it's good for adults to be in that type of environment.
But, you know, why would you send a child without their parent into a situation like that?
You know, it's insane.
And I went to public school my whole life.
And also, I would have rather have been home school, but I went to public school my whole life.
You know, I played baseball my whole life, and I was around those guys, and I saw the things that they were doing.
And I'm telling you, that is not a good environment for your children.
you don't want your children. If you can avoid sending your children to public school, I recommend
that you avoid it even if people hate you for it. Even if people call you names for it or whatever
because at the end of the day my kids aren't going to be the ones that believe that the universe
came from nothing. You know you can make fun of us all you want but your kids are the ones that
believe that whales evolved into deer like I was taught in biology school in high school. How do we
Whales went to the shore and then all of a sudden they grew arms and legs.
Next thing you know they're hopping up mountains. It's like, no, this is stupid.
But yet they'll make fun of us for saying that we believe God created the earth.
No, no, no, what's stupid is evolution. And call us whatever names you want.
It is stupid. Here's another thing people hate us for.
Physically disciplining your children.
This is something becoming more and more unpopular in America, and quite honestly, even a lot of Christians are brainwashed on this issue
and are starting to think that there's something wrong with disciplining your children, even though the Bible says,
thou shalt beat him with the rod.
And it's funny how you look at generations that times passed in America
were much more well behaved children and more civilized children
and it just so happens that generation was the one picking off tree branches
to get their buds whooped by their parents.
And you know I got spanked as a child and I thank God for that
and I wish my parents would have spanked me more.
Now that I'm an adult I look back and I wish I would have gotten disciplined more.
Maybe I would be more of a disciplined person, maybe I'd have better character traits than I do,
if my parents didn't even discipline me more than they did. But you know,
God help the children that are being raised now that are getting no discipline.
These are going to grow up into terrible, terrible people.
You know, just like a month ago, I was out soul-winning, and the camera was preaching to this lady.
There was no man in the life. It was just a single mom with her two children.
And these were some of the worst behaved children I've ever seen in my life.
I mean, me and Bethany, we could do nothing as silent partners to help this situation.
There's remotes being thrown across the room, things are smashing in the walls.
There's food all over the walls.
These kids are half naked, running around, just little hellions, literally.
And you can just tell, like, these kids have never had the fear of God putting them.
And you know what's funny? The Bible never says the word spank a single time. It talks about beating.
Now I don't believe you should ever injure a child. That's wrong and wicked.
But you know what? Kids meet serious discipline.
You know, I've been in church for over 10 years and honestly observing all sorts of different parents
and observing all sorts of different methods of discipline,
it's been my observation that the vast majority of parents spank their children too soft.
to life. I mean, I've literally seen parents apply a spanking to their kids where it's one of these like
the 20 or 30, and the kid has no expression change. Nothing happened. Like it was a joke.
You're not spanking your children. Look, the Bible says not to spare for the child's crying.
Look, if there's no crying going on, you probably didn't give a good enough spanking.
You know, we need to get back to actually disciplining children, but people will say you're abusive.
People will criticize you. People will say that you're doing something wrong.
And, of course, they hate us for other stances that we take, like our stance on abortion.
You know, we're not just like, oh, well, you know, we're against abortion unless the mother
was raped or unless it's incest.
It's like, no, it's just never okay to kill a baby, period.
Regardless of how that baby was created, it's always murdered to kill a child.
Now, you know, it'd be a good start if we started killing the rapists instead of the
babies.
fundamentalists, you know, even Donald Trump is for abortion in certain circumstances when it comes to things like rape and incest.
He's super for IVF, which also can murder children as well.
And so people hate us for our stance on that. Of course, they hate us for our stance on sodomy.
Of course, they hate us for our stance on divorce, that our church believes that divorce is always wrong, that there's never an exception for that.
You know, people are even starting to hate us today for the most simple things that we
used to take for granted, like, I don't know, not being a cross dresser.
You know, we get up and scream and yell about these trainings in our society, and people
say that we're hateful and we're crazy and we're in a cult, and it's like, no, this
world has just lost its mind.
And realize that the farther we go in time, the crazier this world is going to get.
And if you stick with what the Bible says, people will hate you more and more and more.
And so David's just like, why am I just being hated?
There's no good reason.
We're hated for homeschooling our children, doing what's right.
We're hated for spanking our kids, which God told us to do.
We're hated for believing all the things that Jesus Christ told us to believe.
Look, a lot of times we're hated for no good reason whatsoever.
Look at verse number 23, and I think you're in Luke chapter 6.
Go to Luke chapter 6, 23, if you're not there.
He said, rejoice in that day, and lead for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven,
for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
Hey, when you're hated for no reason whatsoever, you know what you should think?
You should think, hey, I'm kind of like King David right now.
That's good company.
I'm kind of like King David, how he was hated by Saul for no good reason.
You know, I'm being hated in like manner like the fathers were, like the prophets were.
Go to John chapter 15 John chapter number 15
John 15 look at verse 18
Jesus said if the world hate you you know that it hated me
Before it hated you notice Christians are just by default
Hated by this world not because of anything that we did but because of the Lord Jesus Christ
Now of course Christians can be hated for doing evil, that's called suffering as an evil doer and there's no glory in that.
Obviously God is disappointed when Christians suffer for evil doers, for being an evil doer, but you know just default the world hates us because of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I mean I can't tell you how many times I've knocked on a door.
I've said nothing, not a single word has come out of my mouth.
I'm just standing there with a pleasant facial expression and it's just like hell erupts on us from these God haters and these Karens
that just want to scream and yell at you and you don't want to know the reason why?
It's because we're holding this in our hand.
Because there's people out there that hate the Lord Jesus Christ, and by default, they hate Christians as an extension of that.
Verse 19,
If you were of the world, the world would love his own.
But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hated you.
Look, as a Christian, especially if you're new to the faith, you just need to get used to and comfortable with the fact that you're not going to be cool in the eyes of the world.
And you know what? Being uncool is the new cool anyways.
Because now, like the most counter-cultural thing that you could possibly be is like a clean cut, straight-laced...
Fit Christian that has children that works hard a wife that stays home and takes care of the children
You know have some chickens in your backyard, baby
What just whatever the most normal thing was in times past is now like radical
Extreme insane and sometimes teenagers young people are so obsessed with being cool being different
But you know this world has gone so insane that just being a fundamental Baptist you will stand out would be different
But you know what? It doesn't mean you're going to be liked, but just get used to it because Jesus warned us about that.
Verse 20 says,
Remember the word that I said unto you,
The servant is not greater than his Lord.
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
So you know the mentality we should have is saying,
Hey, if David was hated for no reason,
If Jesus was hated for no reason,
I could be hated for no reason too.
It's not going to be the end of the world, it's not going to make me quit serving God.
No, I just realized, hey, this is part of the game, us as Christians, we're going to be hated,
oftentimes for no reason.
Go back to 1 Samuel chapter 20, 1 Samuel chapter 20.
And he said unto him, God forbid thou shalt not die.
Behold, my father will do nothing either great or small,
but that he will show it me.
And why should my father hide this thing from me?
It is not so."
So Jonathan hears David's lamentation here,
saying that he's basically about to die.
He's wondering why he's being attacked.
And Jonathan's like, no, man, nothing's
going to happen to you.
Don't worry about it.
And quite honestly, this is kind of a dangerous game
that Jonathan is playing here.
because Saul has already shown himself to be insane, to be envious, to be murderous.
So it seems to me like Jonathan is kind of just burying his head in the sand a little bit here,
but I think David has the right mentality because he'll be verse three.
And David swear moreover and said,
And he say it, let not Jonathan know this lest he be grieved, but truly as the Lord live it, then as thy soul live it, there is but a step between me and death.
And you know, I think David is the one who is correctly perceiving the situation here. He's saying, look.
Your father's lost his mind, your father's already tried to kill me multiple times,
and he knows that you and I are friends.
He knows that you like me, so if he wanted to kill me, he probably wouldn't tell you anyways.
And he's saying, like, look, I'm this close to dying, this is a very serious situation.
And of course, David has the right mentality because, remember, what do you do with Saul?
You get away from Saul.
When you realize he's a Saul, you get away from him, and that is the right attitude.
Then Jonathan's then said Jonathan unto David. Whatsoever thy soul desire it
I will even do it for thee so Jonathan kind of defers to David's judgment as his friend
He says okay, whatever you want. I'm on your side. I'm on your team. Let's make a plan
And number two this evening is David's plan for persecution look at verse five
It says and David said unto Jonathan behold tomorrow is the new moon and I should not fail to sit with the king at knee
but let me go that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at evening."
So, you know, normally David as one of the servants of King Saul,
if there's a beast going on, he would be at meat. He'd be eating dinner with the king.
But he's saying, look, I'm not going to do this right now because I need to hide myself.
Verse 6 says,
If thy father at all miss me, then say, David earnestly asked, leave of me, that he might run to Bethlehem his city, for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the family.
If he say thus it is well, thy servant shall have peace, but if he be very raw, then be sure that evil is determined by him."
His plan really, just boil down, is to just simply run away.
His plan is to flee, is to escape, is to not be around Saul, because obviously Saul is trying to kill him.
Now, this has some application for us in the New Testament, because when we suffer persecution, the question is, what do we do?
Well, Jesus actually told us to deal with it in the exact same way.
Go to Matthew chapter number 10, Matthew chapter 10.
I think that this doctrine can kind of be hard for some people because the idea of fleeing
kind of goes against man's prideful nature.
Man usually wants to fight, stand his ground, never budge.
And there's definitely a time to do that, for sure.
But notice what Jesus said in Matthew 10.22.
And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake,
but ye that endureth to the end shall be saved.
But when they persecute you in this city,
notice, flee ye into another.
For verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son
of man become.
The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant, above his Lord."
Look, sometimes, as hard as it is for man's flesh to accept, sometimes the right thing
to do is to flee, is to run away, live to fight another day.
And again, that's kind of hard for us to swallow sometimes, but I mean a good example of this
And some of the persecution recently that some of our brethren in Germany have been facing,
where they're stuck between, hey, go to America, where I could freely preach the gospel, freely go to church, freely preach the whole Council of God,
or sit here in Germany and face prison time and massify and all these issues.
It's like, what is the right decision to make in that case?
Well, you know, I don't fault any of these guys for fleeing Germany, getting away from that situation.
and going where they could freely preach the gospel.
And you know, that's kind of the attitude that we need to take.
You know, I don't know what the future looks like for our nation, for our world.
I don't know if we're the generation that could possibly be living through the tribulation period.
But you know, we ought to think of these things now, these principles now, so that if the time comes, we know what to do.
And you know, I could see a situation where maybe persecution...
gets so bad in the United States that maybe we would have to go somewhere else. I don't know,
the Bahamas, somewhere like that, where they got the King James Bible in the schools. Maybe that
could be our place to go. But you know, whenever something gets really, really bad, persecution
increases. Sometimes God wants you to go to the next city. Sometimes God wants you to go to the
next area. Sometimes God just wants you to flee. And you know what? Jesus Christ himself told his
runaway, you know, it makes no sense just wasting the apostles, letting them get murdered by the Jews
before they've gone out and really fulfilled their whole ministry preaching the gospel.
Go to Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter number 13. We'll look at this principle in practice.
Verse 43 of Acts chapter 13.
It says, now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes
followed Paul and Barnabas who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace
of God, verse 44, and the next Saturday came almost the whole city together to hear the
word of God, but when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against
those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you.
But seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves
unworthy of everlasting life,
lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
He's saying, look, you want to come against us, you want to speak against us, persecute
us, throw us in jail, contradict, blaspheme.
He's saying, you know what, it's a good thing that the Word of God came to you first because
you've judged yourself unworthy of everlasting life, low return to the Gentiles.
And sometimes persecution is just a sign that this is a bad area.
Sometimes when you experience persecution, it's a sign saying, hey, don't cast your
Don't waste your time with these people because there's other people in this world that want the gospel.
There's other people that are seeking God and those are the people that we should prioritize.
Look at verse 47.
For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying,
I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles,
that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.
And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the regions.
So notice, when they actually did leave the Jews and the word of God went to the Gentiles, there was a great harvest of souls when that happened.
And you know, I kind of think this is what happened to Steadfast when we were going through a lot of persecution.
In Hearst, Texas, our church was planted there, and we ended up going through lots of lawsuits and legal battles.
And at the time, and quite honestly, the whole time it was very stressful and it was kind of a nightmare.
But when it was over, we kind of saw the good because we went from Hearst, which the soul winning in Hearst wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the best.
Then we went to Wataga. The soul winning in Wataga was really bad.
really, really bad. And once again, when step-ass was in Wataga, they received a bunch of persecution.
But once they left Wataga, they went to Cedar Hill, which is kind of in the South Dallas area,
and the soul-winning there is absolutely great.
And sometimes you just wonder, like, does God allow sometimes people to go through persecution to drive them away from the bad areas to cause them to flee so that they could actually spend their time preaching to people that are receptive?
You know, God doesn't want us just spinning our wheels. We have a short life to live on this earth. He doesn't want us wasting our lives doing nothing for Him.
Sometimes He's like, hey, you know, this whole hermitage area, it's not really working out.
Let's send some children to Belial, some Jews, some sodomites, to persecute them, and then Steadfast is going to go to South Dallas, and guess what? Very receptive area.
And you know what? I love soul winning in South Dallas. I like my coffee like I like my soul winning. Just like South Dallas. It's the best. Alright? It's great soul winning.
Go to, if you would, 1st Samuel chapter number 20. 1st Samuel 20.
out preaching to the gospel, doing missions trips.
Sometimes persecution is given to us by God
to let us know, hey, go somewhere else.
Try something different,
find other people to preach the gospel to.
Verse eight says, therefore thou shalt deal kindly
with thy servant, for thou hast brought thy servant
into a covenant of the Lord with thee,
notwithstanding if there be in me iniquity,
slay me thyself, for why shouldest thou bring me
to thy father?
You know, David's kind of burnt out here, and he's saying, look, I'm already facing
death.
I'm on the run.
If you're going to just betray me, too, just go ahead and just kill me right now.
You know, he's kind of black-filled right here, and he's just ready to be done with
this situation.
And sometimes when you're going through a lot of persecution, when a lot of junices
are being exposed, sometimes you can feel like everyone's against you.
Sometimes you can just have suspicions of everyone where you've just been burned so many times
where you're just wondering, like, look, are you going to kill me too?
Just go ahead and slay me right now.
Just go ahead and turn on me right now if that's the case.
You know, David's kind of at a low point mentally here.
But verse 9 says in Jonathan said,
Far be it from thee,
For if I knew certainly that evil were determined by my father to come upon thee,
Then would not I tell it thee?
And so, you know, Jonathan is a loyal friend. Jonathan is on David's side.
And you know, every single one of us, we need a Jonathan in our life.
We need a faithful friend. It's going to stick with us through the hard times.
And that's an encouragement when you're going through problems and difficulties in life
to have someone like Jonathan.
And you know, if you're in Jonathan's situation and your friend is going through a hard time,
be a Jonathan to that person. Confirm your love towards that person.
That's what he's doing here. You know, David's kind of freaked out.
And Jonathan is confirming his love toward him saying,
hey, I'm on your side.
If I knew evil was going to come upon you,
I would tell you.
I am your friend.
I am loyal.
I'm on your side.
You know, when we see our friends, family members, people
in our lives going through situations like that,
that's an opportunity for you to confirm your love toward them,
let them know you support them, and back them up.
Verse 10.
Then said David and Jonathan, who shall tell me?
Or what if thy father answered thee roughly?
And John then said unto David, Come and let us go out into the field.
And they went out, both of them into the fields.
They're kind of going on a walk here, verse 12.
And John then said unto David, O Lord God of Israel,
When I have sounded my Father about tomorrow any time, or the third day,
And behold, if there be good for David.
And I then send not unto thee, and showeth thee, the Lord do so, and much more to Jonathan."
Now, that's a very wordy way of him just saying like,
Hey, David, if Saul is cool with you and I don't tell you, let bad stuff happen to me.
It's kind of what he's saying here, just in a very poetic way.
First number.
13 the word do so do so and much more to Jonathan, but if it please my father to do the evil
So it's all does want to hurt you
Then I will show it thee, and send thee away, that thou mayest go in peace, and the Lord
be with thee, as he hath been with my father."
He's saying, look, if I find out that harm is coming your way, if I find out that you're
in danger of death or harm or anything like that, I'm going to tell you.
And you know what this made me think of?
It made me think of our job as soul winners.
That we are kind of like a Jonathan in this situation, and this whole world is in danger.
This whole world has harm coming their way.
You know, we need to be a faithful friend to this world and say, hey, just so you know,
yep, there is evil determined upon you.
You are in danger.
You need help.
Go to Ezekiel chapter number three, Ezekiel chapter number three.
If you actually did find out, what if Saul said, yeah, Jonathan, I'm just letting you know I'm going to hunt David down, I'm going to kill this guy,
here's when we're going to launch the attack, and Jonathan's just like, oh, cool.
And he doesn't say anything, doesn't warn David, what kind of person would do something like that?
Not a loving person, that's for sure.
Obviously, he just demonstrates, it's obvious, it's manifest, that Jonathan does not love David if he didn't warn him if he was going to die.
Now, is this the same thing with Christians? Well, look at Ezekiel 3 verse 17.
Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
When I say unto the wicked thou shalt surely die and thou givest him not warning
Nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity
But his blood will I require at thine hand
And you know, when we, as Christians, have been given the Great Commission, we've been
given the Ministry of Reconciliation, you know, if we don't preach the gospel, the
unsafe will die and go to hell for their sin.
But you know what?
God is holding us accountable for not doing our job.
And God is angry at the Christian and at the church that refuses to go out and preach
the gospel.
And any Christian that knows their job is to go out and preach the gospel and just refuses
That is a Christian that lacks love.
It's just obvious.
Like, hey, Jonathan, if David's going to get killed and you don't tell him,
you obviously don't love David.
And it's so funny how many people and how many Christians and how many pastors...
Love to attack a new IV because we're so mean we've got such a mean spirit
We call out the sodomites we preach hard against sin, but those same people don't even go so many right
They don't even have a soul any program at their church, or they just leave some sort of door hanger without preaching the gospel to everyone
They pick someone up in a bus don't even preach the gospel to them
They want to lecture us about being loving. We know what you're like the person
You're like the watchman that sees evil coming and doesn't warn.
You're like Jonathan who says,
yeah, there's a conspiracy to kill David and just doesn't even tell him.
Those are the unloving people.
Right. What a joke to lecture other Christians who are actually soul winners
about love when you're doing the most unloving thing imaginable.
Because guess what?
David being killed or an army coming in and wiping out in the city
is nothing compared to hell.
Why? Because hell is everlasting burning. Hell is torment day and night forever and ever.
The smoke of their torment ascended up forever and ever. And they have no rest day nor night.
This is what the Bible says. You cannot fathom. I cannot fathom a worse punishment than hell.
You can sit down and try. Try it tonight. Think of something worse than hell. You can't. It's the ultimate punishment.
And someone that believes hell is real, someone that's saved and refuses to preach the gospel is someone that simply doesn't love me.
And so, you know, I refuse to harken to any criticism from anyone that is not a soul winner.
And some people like to make fun of this.
Oh, you just think that, you know, you're a soul winner, so you're superior to other Christians.
Every soul winner is superior than every non- soul winner.
Because that person actually loves people and I don't care how much Bible you know
I don't care how polished your parents is how nice your family looks on the outside
How long you've been in the ministry how established your church is what your church assets look like if you are not a soul-inner
You are nothing you are nothing
God is not impressed with you or your ministry and neither am I you know that is a serious
Blemish in Christianity today that we are lacking soul winners
Go to or look at verse number 19 says yet if thou warned the wicked and he turned not from his wickedness
Nor from his wicked way
He shall die in his eminity, but thou has delivered thy soul
And you have to realize that we our job primarily is to be soul-warners
Now we like winning souls. That's our goal is to win souls. I'm passionate about soul winning.
I want us to be really sharp soul winners and to expend a lot of energy and resources on soul winning.
But at the end of the day, the only thing that we absolutely can control for sure is being soul mourners.
And look, this should be encouraging to people that maybe live in more difficult areas of the world to preach the gospel.
Portland, Oregon, compared to here. It's really rough. You got places in Europe that are really hard to preach the gospel
But just realize that God has called all of us to be soul warners
And God is pleased with someone that at least goes out and tries to give people the gospel that warns
People and at least now the Bible says now let's deliver thy soul. Your hands are clean from their blood
You know, you could sleep at night knowing at least you tried to preach someone the gospel
Go back to 1st annual chapter number 20
You know, David said that he was but a step between where he is now and death and the
world today does not understand that they are one heartbeat away from an eternity in
hell.
That is something that just an average, unsafe guy doesn't know, isn't thinking about, but
that doesn't make it any less true than it is.
That there's people in this world that will die during this sermon, that will spend eternity
in hell and you know what, we need to make sure that we take it seriously to warn those
people.
Amen.
Verse 14, and thou shalt not only while, yet I live, show me the kindness of the work that I die not,
but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever.
No, not when the Lord has cut off the enemies of David, everyone from the face of the earth.
And so Jonathan says like, hey, I'm going to help you David, I'm going to warn you,
but I don't want you to do just good unto me.
I want you to do good to my offspring after me.
He's wanting David to bless him.
And I think this is kind of a relationship, a picture of our relationship with God.
Let me show you that in Deuteronomy chapter number seven, Deuteronomy seven.
He's saying, look, I want you to do good unto me, and my seed that comes after me, and the generations after me, I want you to bless them as well.
Deuteronomy 7 verse 9 says, Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenants and mercy, notice with them that love him, and keepeth his commandments to a thousand generations.
You know, Jonathan's asking that David would not only do good unto him, but that he would also do good to his descendants.
And the Bible Deuteronomy says that those that actually love God, those that actually keep God's commandments,
God is going to repay them with His covenant and with mercy to a thousand generations.
God's going to be faithful to those people.
Look at verse 10.
But the contrary is true says and repay them that hate him to their face to destroy them
He will not be slapped.
To him that hated him, he will repay him to his face.
God is someone to be feared.
This is a true saying, people say this all the time,
that God could either be your greatest friend,
your greatest ally, or your worst enemy.
David kind of pictures that,
because hey, if you're on David's side,
he's taking care of you, he's getting you through battles.
He's leading the army. He's leading the nation to do right.
You know, he's got a great friendship with Jonathan.
But if you're against David, like Eliott, your head's getting chopped off.
You know, if you're against David, if you're the Philistines or the armies of these pagans,
you know, you're going to get destroyed.
You're going to get wrecked.
And you know, that's kind of the same thing with God.
You're on his side.
Hey, there's no one safer to be with than with the Lord.
But if you're his enemy, he's going to pay you to your face.
It'll destroy you. He'll make it obvious. You know, there is a God that judges in the earth, the Bible says.
And sometimes God judges someone so harshly that it's just obvious that it was the hand of God that did that.
I mean, Nebuchadnezzar comes to mind, losing his mind, having the heart of a beast, eating grass, letting his nails grow out like a bird.
You know, I think about Korah, Dayton, and Abiram, where God literally just opens up the earth.
and they just fall straight into hell and the company that we're surrounding them.
I mean, there's times where God judges in the earth where it's like,
oh yeah, he's repaying those people to their face.
You know, someday God's going to do this on a massive scale.
It's called the wrath of God.
When the princes and the kings of this earth and all the mighty men and all the rich men are hiding
In the dens and caves of the rock asking the mountains to fall on them and to hide them from the face of the wrath of the lamb
I mean that's an intense level of in your face wrath that God is pouring out
So you know people have a choice in many ways to be God's best friend or God's worst enemy
Hey, you want to get saved you're always gonna be in the love of God God's always gonna be with you
You're always gonna have to promise in heaven.
If you don't get saved,
you're gonna have eternal wrath and torment
for all eternity.
Then beyond that, there's like those Christians that actually love God and want to keep us commandments and God's hand is on those people,
God's really blessing those people, or you could be saved, decide to be rebellious, not obey God's commandments,
and His hand could be against you, His chastisement could be upon you, your whole life, and it seems like you're against four.
You know, a lot of these things we can control by our decisions. Go to verse 16 of 1 Samuel chapter 20.
Verse 16, So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David saying,
Let the Lord who has been required it at the hand of David's enemies.
And Jonathan caused David to swear again because he loved him,
for he loved him as he loved his own soul.
Then Jonathan said to David, Tomorrow is the new moon and thou shalt be missed,
because thy seat will be empty.
When thou hast stayed three days, then thou shalt go down quickly, and come to the place
where thou didst hide thyself when the business was in hand, and shalt remain by the stone
hezo, and I will shoot three arrows on the side thereof, as though I shot at a mark.
Behold, I will send a lad saying, Go, find out the arrows.
take them, then come now, for there is peace to thee, and know her as the Lord liveth."
So he's saying, go ahead David, go on the run, but three days after you're on the run,
come back to the stone, and I'm going to come out to this field and act like I'm doing some partner practice.
I'm going to have a little lad with me, I'm going to shoot three arrows,
and if I tell the lad, hey, it's on this side of you, the arrows are on this side of you,
then why don't you come out of your hiding place, and I'm going to let you know, hey, you're safe, it's good to come out.
But if I say thus unto the young man, Behold, the arrows are beyond me,
Go thy way, for the Lord hath sent thee away."
You're basically saying if I shoot the arrows beyond the let them let me know you're in danger
If you need to stay on the run and let me just pause here and just say aren't you glad that we have technology now
Where we could just text each other these messages not have to come out with these like elaborate communication
It's like I shoot the arrow this way and now we should be like bro. You're cooked
You know, you're good get on the signal encryption app. Let it know known for trackers be like you're cooked man. Keep running
Keep finding that, you know,
historical food or whatever you got to do to stay alive,
but he's got to do all these, you know, messages.
I just think it's kind of interesting.
Letters 23, it says,
and as touching the matter,
which thou and I have spoken of,
behold, the Lord be between me and thee forever.
So David hid himself in the field,
and when the new moon was come,
the king sat him down to eat meat.
And the king sat upon his seat as at other times, even upon a seat by the wall, and Jonathan
arose, and Abner sat by Saul's side, and David's place was empty.
Nevertheless, Saul spake not anything that day for he thought something had to be fallen him. He is not clean
Surely he is not clean. So notice Saul did notice David's absence the first time
It's not like you know win over his head or anything like that
But he's kind of just trying to rationalize it in his mind and come up with some excuse as to why David is gone
Verse 27 says, it came to pass on the morrow, which was the second day of the month that David's place was empty.
And Saul said unto Jonathan his son, Wherefore come it not the son of Jesse to meet neither yesterday nor today?
And you know at this point I believe Saul's kind of figured out what's going on.
And remember David's prediction was that Saul was going to believe that Jonathan is friends with David and that he wasn't going to basically tell him the truth.
But look at verse 28, he says,
and John then answered Saul, David earnestly asked,
believe of me, to go to Bethlehem.
And he said, let me go, I pray thee,
for our family hath a sacrifice in the city,
and my brother, he hath commanded me to be there.
And now, if I have found favor in thine eyes,
let me get away, I pray thee, and see my bread.
Therefore, he comeeth not unto the king's table.
Now, of course, everything in the Bible is true,
and since that has actually, absolutely happened,
but the Bible does not paint every single person
in the Word of God as some sort of saint
that never sins.
You know, this is clearly a lie that's being told here,
but the Bible is just faithfully reporting
the plan that they have.
His plan was to flee and lie.
They should have just stuck with just the flee plan
and not adding the lie unto it, but that is what they did.
Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan and he said unto him thou son of the perverse
rebellious women ladies
How would you like it if your husband's you know said that to one of your children? Wow? I mean that's intense
Now, son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son
of Jesse to thine own confusion and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness."
So here, David's judgment was vindicated.
Because you remember at the beginning of the chapter, David told Jonathan, this is what's
going to happen.
At first, Jonathan's like, no, David, you're fine.
My dad's not going to do anything to you.
He's not going to intend any harm.
I mean, remember, he swore.
He swore, as to Lord Living.
He's not going to touch you.
And David's like, no, he's going to perceive that you like me,
and stuff's going to go down.
And of course, that's exactly what happened.
And here's the thing.
Here's just kind of like a micro lesson from this.
Is we live in a generation and in a time
that's very anti-judgment.
We want to be told that judging is always wrong.
Judging is bad.
But you know what, it was by David judging
Saul that even kept him alive.
Sometimes you gotta look at someone's actions, you gotta look at a history of behavior, and
you gotta come up to it with a judgment of this person and say, you know what, I don't
trust this person, this person is bad.
Oh, that's judging them.
Yeah, it is judging them, but you know what, it kept David alive because if he didn't
judge at all and say, look, this guy's crazy, this guy's a liar, this guy's for sure gonna
try to kill me again.
You know, don't listen to the lie, if you shouldn't judge, please judge people.
You know, ladies especially, you think some guy's weird, you're out alone shopping at night or whatever,
you get a weird feeling from a guy, judge him.
A guy looks at you weird, judge him.
A guy's acting weird around you, judge him.
Use judgment and of course this goes for men as well. This goes for everyone
But look stop thinking. Oh, I can't judge anyone judge everyone
Judge everyone now. Here's the thing judge righteous judgment, right?
We don't want to just be only surface level only judging things as they appear on the surface
We want to judge based on the work of God
We want to judge off of facts like past behavior like we see with all but you do need to judge in this world
Does that mean you're always going to be right 100% of the time?
No, but you know what?
It's better than not judging at all because this is just insanity to never judge.
I mean, how far are you going to take this?
Like, you know, for example, we had a lady walk into our church a few weeks ago, covered
in blood, told me she was just kidnapped, and I made a judgment.
You know what my judgment was?
Okay, let's call the police right now.
And she goes, oh no, no, it's already been taken care of.
Don't call the police.
You know what I judge?
You're a liar.
You are not just kidnapped.
You just want money.
That was my judgment of her.
Why did I judge that way?
Because usually when people are kidnapped,
they like the police call.
Usually when people just got done being kidnapped, they want help, they want to be returned to
their family or wherever they came from, but I offered her, I was like, you were just kidnapped?
Let's call the police right now.
No, no, I'm good.
And you know what ended up happening?
She left this church telling us that she was gone.
Can I get a witness on that?
Amen.
Okay.
Sounds like I made the right judgment.
Sounds like we need to judge in this world.
Since she's kidnapped then doesn't want any help. It's like okay get out. You're free. All right
I'm making that judgment. And guess what I was right who the Proverbs chapter 14 Proverbs chapter 14
By the way, if you stay at church in between services, please remember to lock that door
Crazy people can wander in especially if there's no men here that could be a dangerous situation
Roberts
chapter 14 verse 29. Now, what did David judge? Like, what what attributes of Saul made him judge
that he should stay away from it? Well, look at Proverbs 14 verse 29. The Bible says,
he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit, exalted the fallen.
The Bible kind of contracts two people, people that are slow to wrath, patient, and people
that are hasty in their spirit, these are people that get angry very quickly.
One person, what do they do?
They exalt, fall.
They're involved in sin.
And if you know someone in your life that's just quick to be angry, they're always angry
about everything, you should make a judgment about that person, and you should limit your
time with that person as much as possible.
I'll prove that further.
The Bible says explicitly in verse 24,
make no friendship with an angry man.
And with a furious man, thou shalt not go.
Lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy soul.
You know, I think Saul qualifies as an angry man.
When he's constantly just picking up javelins and trying to murder his son-in-law in cold blood, you know
He he simply just asks Jonathan. Where's David? Jonathan gives him an answer
He's like you son of the perverse rebellious woman. I mean, this is an angry guy
This is a very furious man
And you know what David was right to judge that and to stay away from him
Go to Proverbs 29 verse 22 Proverbs 29 verse 22
The Bible says, an angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounded in transgression.
Someone who is just angry all the time, they abound in transgression.
They abound in sin.
So you know, we as God's people, we need to learn to judge people, but judge people based
off the Bible.
I mean, the book of Proverbs is giving you tons of wisdom on how to make different judgments
And it's like, how do you analyze people?
Well, you recognize a trait about someone.
Oh, this person's extremely angry.
Well, let me see what the Bible says about that person.
And then you could actually know that person's character,
and you can make a judgment call.
Go back to 1 Samuel chapter number 20.
1 Samuel chapter number 20.
Verse 31 says, for as long as the son of Jesse
liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established.
This is Saul telling this to John.
Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die."
So it's confirmed he does want to do evil to David.
He wants to kill him.
Verse 32.
And John had then answered Saul his father, and said unto him, Wherefore shall he be slain?
What hath he done?
Whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to slay David.
I think that's funny.
It's like, oh, the light bulb finally clicked with Jonathan.
And you know, it's like, the javelin's coming at him in slow-mo.
It's like, oh, I've messed up.
You know, it's like, now it finally clicks with him.
Oh, OK.
I guess my dad does actually want to kill David.
But you know...
One lesson we can learn from this is that when you meet someone in life that's just extremely angry or someone that's just extremely power hungry, like King Saul, you need to realize that that person does not care about anyone, except themselves.
I mean, look at how he's talking about his wife, look at what he's doing to his son-in-law, now he's literally just trying to kill his own son.
Over his anger over King David, you know, you got to get away from people like this in your life
If you're around someone like Saul obviously if you're married to someone that's like this
That's a different story. That's a sermon for a different day
But you know any other relationship when you're around someone like this you got to get away from that person
This is a dangerous individual to be around verse 34
So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger
and did eat no meat the second day of the month for he was bereaved for David
because his father had done him shame.
And it came to pass in the morning that Jonathan went out into the field
at the time appointed with David and a little lad with him.
So he's getting ready now to do his signal with David, letting him know what's going on.
Verse 36, and he said unto his lad,
Run, find out now the arrows which I shoot and as the lad ran he shot an arrow
Beyond him. You know nowadays we're better at gun safety than as they were back then
You normally want to like shoot the arrow with the lad behind you. He's like all right start running start running
Okay, kids down range make sure this goes over his head. Please don't try this with firearms. That's a bad idea
But that's what you did start running kid says in verse number 37 and
was I verse 37? Verse 37, when the lad was come to the place of the arrow, which Jonathan
had shot, Jonathan cried after the lad and said, is not the arrow beyond me. And remember,
that was his signal to David saying, hey, you're cooked, you're on the run, you need
to keep running, he wants to kill you. Verse 38, and Jonathan cried after the lad, make
speed haste not, or sorry, haste, stay not, and Jonathan's lad gathered up the arrows
But the lad knew not anything only Jonathan and David knew the matter and Jonathan gave his artillery
Unto his lad said unto him go carry them to the city
switching gears here towards the end of the sermon
Let's talk about number three this evening the value of godly friendship the value of godly friendship look at verse 41
says
And as soon as the lap was gone, David rose out of a place toward the south and fell on
his face to the ground and bowed himself three times and they kissed one another and wept
with one another until David exceeded.
Now I don't know if you've ever experienced in your life someone literally trying to kill
you, but it could be a pretty high emotional experience, it could get you pretty ramped
And when this happens to David, he finds out, you know, when he hears that cry, he knows, like,
hey, someone's trying to kill me, and he literally just falls to the ground, he's crying, he's bowing himself,
and him and Jonathan kiss each other.
Of course, there's people that hate God and hate the Bible, that like to look at this story
and try to say that this was some sort of sodomite act or some sort of weird stuff going on.
You know, these are perverted minds that would say something like that.
This is a guy that's about to die, he thinks.
He's an extreme emotional turmoil, and they kiss each other.
It's probably not on the lips or anything weird like that.
You know, in other cultures, you see men kiss each other on the cheek.
Thank God that's not the culture here.
I never want that culture here.
But you know, I would never look at this story and be like, oh yeah, David and John.
Yeah, David the one that killed Goliath is a sodomite.
It's like, are you kidding me?
No, that's ridiculous.
But what you do see here is a very intimate friendship what you do see here is
Tender hearts of love from one man of God to another man of God, and you know, that's a beautiful thing
There's nothing wrong with that. That's wonderful to have that type of a friendship
Verse 42 says and Jonathan said to David go in peace for as much as we have sworn
Both of us in the name of the Lord saying the Lord be between me and thee
between my seed and my seed forever and he arose and departed and Jonathan went into the city and
this evening I want to leave you with some thoughts about friendship I want to show you first of all
why was it that David and Jonathan had this close of a friendship I don't think that this was an
accident I think there's a very specific reason why they were so close and the answers in verse 42
Go in peace, for as much as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying,
notice this, the Lord be between me and thee.
I think that the strongest relationships that we have in this life, whether that's between
a husband and wife, whether that's a friend and friend, or churches, pastor friends, whatever,
the bond that brings us together to have a relationship like David and Jonathan is when
the Lord is between one person and another.
When one person has God as the foundation of their friendship with another person who
That's going to lead to a true deep friendship that actually means something because you
know, there's people at work where it's like, amen, you like baseball, I like baseball,
cool, we'll chat baseball once in a while.
Oh, you lift, I lift, awesome.
You know, oh yeah, I like this gun, you like that gun.
But at the end of the day, those relationships are pretty sharp.
You know, that's not the person where you're really gonna pour your heart out to that's not the person where if you're despairing of life
You're being hunted down. You're gonna want to confide in and just be with no
That's gonna be someone like David and Jonathan. Why because the Lord was between them and you're not married yet
This is like the number one thing you should be looking in in a spouse is making sure that you're equally yoked spiritually
If you love the Lord, if you love church, if you love soul winning, if you love the Bible,
you better marry someone that loves God.
You better marry someone that loves those things as much, if not more than you, because
that's going to be the anchor, that's going to be the rock, the foundation of your relationship
that's going to actually lead to a deep love.
It could be because they lose interest in the same things, right?
They're not really connected, they don't have a lot of things in common.
Well, here's one thing you should have in common, for sure, is loving God.
And a lot of people think, like, man, you know, my relationships are struggling, and
they'll, you know, they'll read all these self-help books.
But you know, the best thing you could do for your marriage, your friendships, any relationship
you have, the best thing you could do is to love God as much as possible.
Because when a husband just loves God as much as possible, and a wife loves God as much
as possible, you know what you're gonna find is that they love each other very much too.
And when you've got a friend, David, who is a man after God's own heart, and you've got Jonathan, who's a very humble man, he's not a man that's in it for his own glory,
the Bible says that he loves David as he loves his own soul, he actually cares for him, and he loves God, he loves truth.
You find out that it just so happens that David and Jonathan love each other very, very much.
And you know the relationships that we build in this world need to be built around Christ.
Go to 2nd Corinthians chapter number 6. 2nd Corinthians chapter number 6.
You read this this morning. Let's look at it again verse 14. It says,
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship had righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion had light with darkness?
You know, there's people I interact with every single week of my life that are not saved and I get along with them
We can get you know, we could work together. We can get stuff done
But you know what? I'm never really gonna have fellowship with that person
I'm never really going to truly have fellowship with that person, truly have communion with
that person because how can these things have relations to each other?
How can someone that believes in Christ truly have a deep level of friendship with someone
that doesn't?
But you know when two people do love Christ, when people are saved, isn't it funny how
you can go visit other churches and you just immediately feel like you know these people,
I mean that is the spirit of God that's happy that's being equally yoked in verse 15
It says and what conquered have Christ with Helio or what part have he that believe it with an infidel
In what agreement at the temple of God with idols for he are the temple of the living God as God has said
I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people
Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, sayeth the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you."
You know, it wasn't a shared hobby between David and Jonathan that made them truly love each other.
It wasn't a shared work, you know, profession. It wasn't even a shared nation.
It wasn't the fact that they're both soldiers. It wasn't any of those things that caused them to be close.
What it was is a shared love for God.
You know what's funny is
We sometimes are not the closest as Christians with our
Carnal family members if if we get saved and they don't or if you know
We decide to serve God and they don't sometimes those relationships aren't as strong as even people were not related to in this room
You know sometimes the strongest relationships you have are people in this room
Why because you love God and they love God men
You know I'm telling you if you feel like you lack friendship in your life
You know where you should be looking for real friends is that church?
This is the place where you should find your best friends right not just you know the bowling club
Because you guys both like bowling, you know the shooting club because you guys both like shooting
Oh the baseball field because you guys both like baseball those relationships are gonna be shallow
But real deep friendships that actually last and stand the test of time
They're built on one thing and one thing only and that's a real genuine love for God
That's what you should be looking for
Good Ecclesiastes chapter number four. I'm gonna read a couple verses for you first grade is 1533 says be not deceived
Evil communications corrupt good manners if you spend your time
Around nothing but people that don't like God don't like the things of God those people are going to corrupt your lifestyle
They are going to corrupt your conversation, but if you're around good people that love
God, it's going to edify you, it's going to fillet you up.
Proverbs 27-17 says iron sharpeneth iron.
So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
You know, when two Christians are together, that's iron sharpening iron.
You know, when a Christian is with an unsaved person, it's like a Q-tip trying to sharpen iron.
It's just never going to happen, folks. It's never, ever going to happen.
But, you know, iron sharpeneth iron.
Lastly, look at Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verse number 9.
The Bible says two are better than one.
because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, the one who lift up his fellow,
but woe to him that is alone when he falleth,
for he hath not another to help him up."
You know, I'm sure that David was thankful for a friend like Jonathan,
as he's being hunted, as he's in threat of death.
You know, I'm sure he's thankful for someone that's willing to pass the message,
to say, hey, you are in danger, you need to go on the run.
I'm sure he's thankful for someone to comfort him.
as he's on the ground, crying with his face to the ground, going through a hard time.
You know, I'm sure he's thankful for Jonathan, you know, us in our lives, every single one of us
needs someone like that in our lives. This is yet again another reason why people need to actually
physically attend a church. I mean, this can't be preached enough because we live in 2025,
where it's so easy to just get all your spiritual needs met online.
But you know what, you're not going to get all your spiritual needs met online, ever.
Ever.
It doesn't matter if the Lord tarries thousands and thousands of more years before He comes
back.
You will never get all your spiritual needs met online.
You need to gather around God's people.
You need to have a Jonathan in your life to encourage you.
You know, not only should you just have a Jonathan in your life to encourage you, you've got
to apply this to yourself and you've got to say, hey, am I being a Jonathan for someone
That is real humility. That's real Christianity. That's real loving your brothers.
It's not just thinking about, yeah, you know, I need a Jonathan and of course you do need a Jonathan.
I need a Jonathan. I do need a Jonathan. But you know what's better than that is to think,
how can I be a Jonathan to someone else? How can I lift up my brothers? How can I encourage
my brethren? How could I be a service to them when they're going through hard times?
You know, that's something that God is pleased with.
We'll pick it up next week in verse or chapter 21. Let's go ahead and have a word prayer. Lord. Thank you so much for this chapter
Thank you for the beautiful pictures in this chapter
I just pray that all of us would be people that are thinking of our brothers and sisters and the needs that they have
That would be encouragement to them God and I pray that people would be faithful to church or someone has a founder church
They would come to a real congregation of real people that love each other
and I pray that you would help strengthen the relationships in this room whether it be marriages
or friendships that you just cause us to center our relationships around love for you.
We love you in Jesus name and prayer. Amen.
All right if you'll grab your hymnals our last hymn this evening number 130
Yesterday, today, forever.
Ham number 130.
Yesterday, today, forever.
We'll see them starting on the first.
The sin is the same
Still he loves to save the sin
For ill the sick and lame